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Copyright © 1990 by ASME
Stealth Aircraft-History, Technology and Outlook
BILL SWEETMAN
Technical Editor
Jane's Information Group (USA)
Alexandria, VA
ABSTRACT
The development of low observables or Stealth
technology is reviewed. Brief descriptions are given of
the major Stealth aircraft programs now under way,
including the Lockheed F-117A, the Northrop B-2, the US
Air Force's Advanced Tactical Fighter and the US Navy's
A-12. Mention is made of LO work in other nations and
potential counters to Stealth are summarised.
PART_,_:__ HI$10.RY..,_ .._CURR NT PROGR{^MS
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Radar has been a decisive force in military
aviation since the first practical systems were
developed in the late 1930s. Its first use was to
provide early warning of a bombing raid, together with
reliable, consistent information on the strength and
course of each element of the incoming force. Within a
few years, radar was also being used to aim accurate
ground-based cannon against airborne targets by day or
by night, and to allow fighter pilots to start and even
complete engagements against targets beyond visual
range,
The steps which have been taken to negate radar
have been equally extensive, whether the objective has
been to deprive the enemy of early warning or to
prevent radar-guided weapons from operating accurately.
Most military aircraft carry some kind of radar warning
system; virtually all front-line combat aircraft carry
active noise or deception jammers and chaff dispensers,
as a means of protection against radar-guided missiles.
More powerful jammers are installed on special-purpose
aircraft which either accompany the attacking force or
stand off behind the battle area.
Many modern combat aircraft, such as the F-111,
B-1 and Tornado, have been expressly designed and
equipped to fly at very low level through hostile
territory. They are directly concealed from most
ground-based radars by the terrain and by the curvature
'Presented at the Gas Turbine and Aeroengine Congress and Exposition—June 11-14, 1990—Brussels, Belgium
90-GT-172
as,popmw eor In dis-
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of the Earth, while reflections from the ground reduce
the effective range of airborne radars which may
illuminate them.
A complete class of missiles has been developed
to home on to radar emissions, either destroying radar
systems or forcing their operators to stop
transmitting. These can be ground-launched, carried for
self-defence by strike aircraft or bombers, or carried
on specialised defense-suppression aircraft such as the
US Air Force's F-4G Wild Weasel.
EARLY EXPERIMENTS
Compared with this arsenal of weapons and
technology, the idea of making the aircraft less
detectable by radar in the first place seems so simple
and logical that it is not immediately obvious why it
is only now being put into practice on any significant
scale, half a century after radar was invented.
In fact, the idea of radar camouflage is almost
as old as radar itself; the first serious attempt to
produce a warplane which would be significantly less
visible to radar was made in 1943; and the idea of
reducing the radar reflectivity of an aircraft was the
subject of a great deal of research between the end of
the 1939-45 war and the early 1970s. None of these
efforts, however, was successful enough to have more
than a marginal impact on military aviation.
The problem, in part, is that radar is a very
reliable and extremely sensitive method of detecting
and tracking targets at long range. It has been
steadily improved in power output and in sensitivity.
On the other side of the equation, the target's
reflectivity is only one of a number of factors which
determine the range at which the radar will detect it.
Changing the target's radar cross-section - the
standard measurement of reflectivity - does not reduce
detection range by an equal amount; in fact, detection
range is in proportion to the fourth root of RCS. As a
result, RCS must be reduced by a factor of ten to make
a tactically significant difference to detection range.
 Radar cross-section= 10 square meters/
Detection range
100
Radar cross-section= 5 square meters
Detection range = 84 miles
S reverted to metal, providing more usable volume.
E
C
C
Radar cross-section= 1 square meter
E 50
Detection range = 55 miles
0
0 Radar cross-section= 0.1 square meter
Detection range = 32 miles
Radar cross-section- 0.01 square meter
Detection range = 16 miles
RCS (square meters)
5 10
(Fig 1: Relationship of detection range to RCS)
The result, before 1970 at least, was that
attempts at reducing the RCS of aircraft tended to be
outpaced by the development of better radar. Even if an
aircraft could be built with a sufficiently reduced RCS
to achieve a cut in detection range, the pace of radar
development was such that its advantage would probably
be wiped out within a few years.
In 1943, for example, the Horten brothers planned
to build their HoIX flying-wing light jet bomber from a
sandwich construction incorporating plywood skins and a
radar-absorbing core made of glue, wood chips and
charcoal. This was an immensely far-sighted
development, but would probably have been ineffective
because no provision was made for suppressing the
reflections from the visible components of the engines.
(Fig 2: Morten HoIX)
In the immediate post-war years, many types of
radar-absorbing material were tested. They were not
ineffective, in terms of their ability to reduce the
radar reflectivity of test targets; but when they were
fitted to real aircraft the results were invariably
disappointing. In the case of the Lockheed U-2, for
example, it was found that the extra weight and drag of
the absorbent material so reduced performance that the
aircraft's vulnerability was actually increased.
In the design of the Lockheed A-12 - the
immediate predecessor of the SR-71 - the lessons of the
U-2 experiment were taken into account. The aircraft
was shaped to reduce RCS from the front and rear
aspects, and high-temperature plastics and ferrite
= 100 miles
paints were developed to further reduce RCS. The effort
was technically successful, the original A-12 having a
• frontal RCS around 0.015 m2. Paradoxically, however,
it was judged to be operationally unnecessary because
the A -12's speed and altitude performance rendered it
virtually immune from interception. In the development
of the SR-71, some of the radar-absorbent structure
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(Fig 3: SR-,71)
FACETING AND HAVE BLUE
Lockheed's Advanced Development Projects (ADP)
organization, the legendary Skunk Works, retained a
strong interest in reduced observables and, in the mid-
1970s, its researchers achieved a major breakthrough.
Employing the increased power of mainframe computers,
they devised programs to solve the complex equations
which govern electromagnetic scattering. The
reflectivity of a shape could be rapidly modelled,
allowing designers to create complex shapes which
satisfied both aerodynamic and electromagnetic
criteria. For the first time, it became possible to
design and build an aircraft which most radar systems
could not detect at tactically significant distances.
Early in 1977, ADP received a contract from the
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to
build two experimental Stealth prototypes, under a
program called Have Blue. They were 60 % scale versions
of a proposed Stealth strike aircraft. The first of
these made its maiden flight from the secure facility
at Groom Lake, Nevada, in January 1978, the second
following in March or April. The first aircraft was
lost in May 1978. The second aircraft completed more
than 100 flights before crashing in early 1980; by
that time, however, the Stealth characteristics and
aerodynamic qualities of the design had been fully
validated.
SENIOR TREND AND THE F-117A
Also in 1978, the USAF - which had taken over the
entire program from DARPA - initiated full-scale
development of an operational Stealth strike aircraft,
under the code-name Senior Trend. The overall aim was
to acquire the ability to hit targets almost anywhere
in the world, with extreme accuracy, minimal collateral
damage and a very small risk of successful interception
or discovery. The aircraft developed under Senior Trend
was designated Lockheed F-117A, made its first flight
in June 1981 and became operational in October 1983.
Since that time, all but a few of the 59 aircraft
ordered have been delivered, and three have been lost.
All the aircraft operate from a specially built base at
Tonopah, Nevada.
(Fig 4: F-1178)
The F-117 is approximately the same size as an F-
4 Phantom. It resembles a highly swept arrowhead in its
planform and is highly blended, with the wing leading
edges continued all the way to the nose. Pitch and roll
control is provided by elevons and directional control
by a pair of canted rudders. A fly-by-wire flight
control system is fitted.
The external surface of the aircraft is
"faceted": that is to say, it is made up entirely of
flat panels. The surfaces are flat and the edges are
straight, to a very high degree of precision, and even
the aerodynamic surfaces are made up of flat panels.
The radii of the leading and trailing edges of the
wings, body and rudder are as small as possible.
The rationale of the faceting technique is to
eliminate random and isotropic scattering features, as
far as possible, from the aircraft's shape. The flat
surfaces have a signature profile with a relatively
strong peak when illuminated by a radar beam which is
normal to the surface, but the return weakens rapidly
at small angles away from normal. No two surfaces lie
in the same plane, and all of them are angled so that
the chances of a ground-based or airborne radar
illuminating them at a normal angle are very small.
Reflections from the leading and trailing edges
cannot be completely avoided, but their importance is
minimised in several ways. The number of reflections is
reduced by the use of a very simple planform,
comprising six long straight edges and a number of
smaller edges. All these edges are oriented along one
of three angles relative to the aircraft centreline, so
that the number of return "spikes" in the planform RCS
profile is reduced. The leading edges are sharply
swept, reducing chances of detection in the tactically
important frontal aspect.
Even if a monostatic or bistatic radar system
succeeds in detecting a reflection from a faceted
target, the reflection will only be detectable as long
as the target's position and angle are in the correct
relationship to the radar. This situation is unlikely
to occur for more than one radar sweep.
The reflectivity of the faceted shape is further
reduced by the application of RAM. Apparently, this
consists of a ferrite active ingredient in a polymer
base. It was originally applied in the form of flexible
sheets, bonded to the aluminium skin of the aircraft,
but, more recently, a technique has been developed for
spraying the RAM on the aircraft automatically.
The F-117 has a highly unconventional engine
installation. The inlets are integrated into the
faceted shape, and are covered by fixed, knife-edged
grills. These are coated with RAM and are de-iced by
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electrical means. Large suck-in doors on top of the
body provide extra airflow on the ground and at low
airspeeds. The exhaust system occupies much of the
aircraft's flattened "platypus" tail; the opening is a
wide, very narrow slot, which both masks the rear of
the engine from radar detection and encourages rapid
dissipation of the exhaust plume. The engines
themselves are General Electric F404s, and are not
significantly different from those used in other
aircraft.
The F-117's weapon bay accommodates two weapons
in the 2,000 lb (900 kg) class. The edges of the bay
and landing gear doors follow the same faceting
principles as the planform; other openings, such as
the engine access panels, are saw-toothed. Before an
operational mission, access panels would be repainted
and sealed with RAM.
(Fig 5: F-117A planform)
No radar is fitted. The navigation/attack suite
consists of a comprehensive electro-optical system and
a high-precision inertial navigation system (INS). Two
EO heads are fitted: one ahead of the windshield and
one in a recess beneath the forward fuselage. Each
includes a laser rangefinder/designator and two
forward-looking infra-red (FLIR) sensors: a wide-
field-of-view system for navigation and a narrow-field-
of-view, telephoto-type system for target acquisition
and identification.
Using this system, the F-117 pilot can navigate
and find his target accurately and with a great deal of
confidence. The nav-attack system can be used to
visually identify turn points and landmarks on the
ingress route, and a trained pilot can confidently
identify and target individual buildings in an urban
area. The primary weapons are laser-guided glide bombs,
typically using the GBU-10 Paveway II guidance kit.
Delivered from a level bombing run, with the highly
accurate velocity information provided by the INS,
these permit a circular error probability measured in
feet.
 The only major limitation of this system is that
it is unable to penetrate cloud or fog. However, the F-
117 was not exclusively or primarily designed for a
full-scale conventional war in the European theatre.
Rather, it is intended for worldwide covert or special
operations in support of national objectives. As
currently organised, targets for the F-117 force must
be approved at White House level.
STEALTH STRATEGIC SYSTEMS
The development of the F-117 proved that an
operational Stealth aircraft could be built, that it
could perform a military mission and that it could be
operated and kept at readiness at a normal tempo by an
Air Force squadron. At the same time as the full-scale
development of the F-117 started, the USAF initiated
two programs to apply Stealth technology to other
missions.
The first was a Stealth cruise missile, developed
by Lockheed under a program known as Senior Prom. The
program was technically successful, but following
flight tests it was halted while cruise missile needs
were studied further. The requirement was re-competed
in 1982, General. Dynamics winning the contract to
develop the Advanced Cruise Missile (ACM).
In 1978, serious work began on the definition of
a Stealth strategic bomber as a substitute for the B-1,
which had been cancelled as a production program in
June 1977. In September 1980, a request for proposals
was issued to Northrop and Lockheed; just over a year
later, in October 1981, Northrop was selected the
winner, and the program acquired the code-name Senior
CJ. It was publicly referred to as the Advanced
Technology Bomber, and was later redesignated B-2.
The RFP called for a low-observable bomber
capable of penetrating air defenses at high and low
level, with a heavy weapon load and essentially
equivalent range to the B-52 and B-1. While the F-117
designers had been able to strike a compromise between
Stealth and aerodynamic and structural efficiency, this
would be harder in the case of the bomber.
Northrop's winning design was a flying wing,
weighing about the same as the original B-1, but with a
considerably greater wing span and area. The digital
electronic FCS would eliminate the stability and
control problems which had hampered the original flying
wings of the 1940s, and would provide gust alleviation
at high speed and low level.
In place of faceting, Northrop used its own
technique for signature management, based on the use of
three-dimensional curves of constantly changing radius.
The inlet design was also different from that used on
the F-117, using RAM-treated S-ducts to obviate the
need for grills.
Northrop's low-observable theory is rigorous in
its demands. Once the outside shape was determined, it
was to be maintained within a thousandth of an inch.
The implications for the design process were greater
than one might think.
The B-2's Stealth qualities, the reason for its
existence, could only be proven by an aircraft which
was exactly the same shape as the production bomber.
Because of this, the designers reasoned, there was no
point in a prototype. It could tell them nothing about
the aerodynamics or signatures of the design that could
be incorporated in a production aircraft, because doing
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so would mean changing the shape and thereby
invalidating the signature data.
Instead, the B-2 was first designed in every
detail, as an operational aircraft, and tested through
computer simulation, in the wind tunnel and on systems
rigs while the production tooling was built. Even at
the start of the program, the prototype was not
expected to fly until October 1987, 72 months after go-
ahead.
The only major change in that period resulted
indirectly from a late change in requirements, in 1980,
which raised the low-level speed limit from Mach 0.55
to Mach 0.8. Following the go-ahead, it was realised
that the aircraft would require more control area at a
more rigid point on the wing; this lead to an
extensive redesign of the wing, delaying the program by
about a year. The design phase was completed in 1985-
86, and fabrication of Air Vehicle 1 commenced in 1985.
It was rolled out in November 22, 1988, and flew on
July 17 of the following year.
( ,gig ': R-2)
The 6-2's flying-wing configuration combines
Stealth with aerodynamic efficiency; in fact, its
maximum lift/drag ratio is almost equal to that of the
Lockheed U-2. The controls are relatively simple:
there are three elevon panels on each side and an
auxiliary elevon at the tail, and split surfaces on the
outer trailing edge function differentially as rudders
and together as airbrakes.
Most of the 8-2's external skin is made of
carbonfibre composite material, not only because of its
light weight but also because it is stiff and resistant
to impact, helping the 8-2 retain its outside shape
during its long service life. Some of the more highly
loaded elements of the internal structure are metal.
The structure of the leading edges and the
wingtips is visibly different from the rest of the
aircraft, and is probably a radar-absorbent structure.
Its location suggests that it is designed to suppress
edge reflections; the leading-edge is blunter than
that of the F-117, for aerodynamic reasons.
The B-2 looks smaller than it is from many
angles. In fact, the long chord and relatively thick
section of the centre wing provide a great deal of
internal space. Two weapon bays, side-by-side, can each
accommodate a rotary launcher for SRAM II missiles or
B83 nuclear bombs; the B-2 can carry up to 50,000 lb
of conventional or nuclear weapons.
Unlike the F-117, the B-2 does have a radar: the
Hughes APQ-118. Twin electronically steered antennas
for this system are mounted in the lower leading edges
of the wing. It presumably represents the state of the
art in low-probability-of-intercept (LPI) technology,
intended to allow the bomber to search for targets
without betraying its own presence.
The B-2 is neither invisible nor undetectable.
However, its frontal radar cross-section is about one
hundred times smaller than that of the B-1. Although
some radars (such as large VHF early warning radars)
may be able to pick it up at reduced range, the target
must be handed off to a surface-to-air missile's
acquisition radar, or to a fighter radar, in order to
perform an interception, and these radars cannot detect
or track a B-2 at sufficient range for the systems
which they support to function properly.
- Tactical Aircraft (ATA), a replacement for the A-6.
(Fig 8a: Conventional bomber tactics)
Pf^RT 2.,..F!TUR _PROGRAMSAND PIaOSPECTS
ATF AND ATA
Despite the successful first flight of the F-117
and the launching of the B-2, there was no agreement in
the early 1980s that Stealth technology could be
readily applied to tactical fighters. Stealth, the
argument went, might be applicable to a point design
such as a strategic bomber or a special-mission strike
aircraft; but a tactical fighter must satisfy
requirements for manoeuvre and acceleration, and
operate efficiently at both subsonic and supersonic
speeds.
ac
Reel, 1o^e,aee
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O
Q ,
(Fig 8b: Stealth bomber tactics)
However, the improved design disciplines and
experience from the F-117 and B-2 programs pointed the
way to a combination of Stealth with conventional
design virtues. The US Air Force's Advanced Tactical
Fighter (ATF) has been the most visible example of this
trend. The importance of Stealth to this program
increased steadily during the evolution of the
requirement. In early 1986, the USAF gave the seven
competing manufacturers extra time to refine their
proposals, mainly to encourage them to place more
emphasis on Stealth. Shortly afterwards, the service
announced that it would fly prototypes of the competing
ATF designs as part of its demonstration/validation
program; one reason for this step was to allow the
manufacturers to be bolder in their basic
configurations. Ultimately, when the winners of the
Dem/Val competition were announced, it was the Stealth
pioneers, Lockheed and Northrop, which prevailed over
the service's more experienced fighter houses.
Similarly, the US Navy planned in 1982 to replace
the F-14 and A-6 with a single aircraft, the VFMX, in
which relatively little emphasis would have been placed
on Stealth technology. However, this was abandoned and
had, by 1985, been superseded by the Stealthy Advanced
General Dynamics and McDonnell Douglas were selected to
develop this aircraft, as the A-12, in January 1988.
The A-12 is described as a "boomerang-shaped"
design, implying that it shares the arrow-shaped
leading edge of the F-117 and B-2 but has a leading-
edge sweepback of approximately 45 0 . It has a crew of
two in tandem, and is powered by two General Electric
F412 engines - uprated, but unreheated versions of the
F404. It is in some ways less ambitious than the ATF;
it is subsonic, and most of its subsystems, including
its engines, its radar and its electronic surveillance
measures system, are developed from systems already
developed or in service rather than being brand new.
For this reason, it is running at least two years ahead
of the ATF. The first full-scale development aircraft
is expected to appear later this year.
The Lockheed YE-22 and Northrop YF-23, prototypes
for the Advanced Tactical Fighter, are rather more

(Fig 9: ATF conception)
Manoeuvrability requirements affect Stealth in
two ways. The aerodynamic configuration must cover a
much wider envelope than that of the B-2, F-117 or A-
12; in particular, the V-shaped planform which
characterizes these aircraft is not very good at
generating respectable lift/drag ratios at high angles
of attack, a pre-requisite for high sustained turn
rates. The fighter's tail surfaces must provide
effective and responsive control over the full flight
envelope, and will therefore tend to be larger. It was
not hard to predict that neither ATF would be a flying
wing.
The other effect of manoeuvrability on Stealth is
to restrict the allowable weight and volume allocated
to RAM. Useful as it may be to the mission, RAM is dead
weight in aeronautical terms, and a 9g fighter has a
tremendous growth factor. Radar absorbing structure
(RAS) will be extremely important to the ATF.
Unlike previous fighters, the ATF is designed to
fly at supersonic speed (around Mach 1.4) without using
afterburner. This imposes some constraints on
aerodynamic design, although the directions in which
supersonic persistence drives the design (slenderness,
streamlining, and high sweep angles) are in general
also good for Stealth qualities. However, inlet design
is another matter. Grids and S-ducts may be acceptable
at Mach 0.9, but present horrendous problems at
supersonic velocities.
HELICOPTERS
Stealth is also a strong factor in the design of
the US Army's LHX attack helicopter. Rotary-wing
Stealth differs from fixed-wing Stealth in its
priorities, rather than its basic principles. As we can
all tell from experience, a low-flying helicopter - and
no sensible person flies a combat helicopter any higher
than he has to - is detectable and frequently
identifiable by its noise long before it is visible,
and sometime before it is within line-of-sight of the
observer. Most anti-helicopter weapons are guided by
laser or infrared means.
It follows that noise and infrared signatures
receive as much attention as the radar signature in the
design of a Stealthy helicopter. The Boeing-Sikorsky
LHX features a shrouded tail rotor, eliminating
interactions between the main and tail rotor wakes;
the McDonnell Douglas/Bell design has no tail rotor.
Both have high-efficiency multi-blade rotors; Boeing,
in its work on the Model 360 demonstrator, has shown
that modern blade sections allow a reduction in
rotational speeds at low airspeeds, further reducing
noise. Both LHX designs feature sophisticated infra-red
suppressors on their engine exhausts.
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Radar signature is by no means neglected; both
LHX designs are notably free of the many rectangular
warts and carbuncles which are apparent on today's
attack helicopters. Engines are inside the basic
fuselage, most weapons are carried internally, sensors
are carefully integrated into the design and landing
gears are retractable.
(Fig 10: Boeing/Sikorsky LHX)
RECONNAISSANCE AIRCRAFT
Stealth has a double pay-off for reconnaissance
aircraft. Not only is survivability increased, but the
adversary may be unaware that he is being observed, and
the effect of concealment or deception may be greatly
diminished.
Reconnaissance aircraft have traditionally been
developed in the "black" funding world. However, two
types of Stealth reconnaissance aircraft are believed
to be under development. One is a long-endurance stand-
off platform, designed to loiter in friendly or neutral
airspace and monitor activities up to 200 miles (320
km) across the border. The other is a hypersonic
penetrating reconnaissance aircraft. Either system may
be either manned or unmanned.
TRANSPORTS
The influence of Stealth in the design of
transport aircraft has not, so far, extended beyond the
study phase. Work under the US Air Force's ATTMA (ATT
Mission Analysis) program showed that Stealth could be
combined with short or vertical takeoff
characteristics in a practical airlifter by
substituting vectored thrust and lift engines for
oversized aerodynamic lift and control devices.
Lockheed studies in 1987 indicated a maximum take-off
weight penalty of 20 - 25 % for a Stealthy airlifter,
compared with a non-Stealthy aircraft having similar
performance.
NON-US DESIGNS
While the United States has committed many
billions of dollars across the full range of Stealth
research, developing design tools and materials and
integrating the results of this research into fully
operational aircraft, there is no sign that any other
country, with the possible exception of the Soviet
Union, has invested more than a tiny fraction of that
sum in this area.
As a result, the new generation of non-US designs
reflects a minimal Stealth approach, in which the most
egregious RCS villains are eliminated, but the design
is not dominated by Stealth.
In the case of the Dassault Rafale, for instance,
one can see that the designers have avoided straight-in
inlet ducts; that vertical plane surfaces and
constant-curve contours have been avoided in the
fuselage design; and that the wings, canard and fin
are also sharply swept. The same applies, to some
extent, to the Eurofighter EFA. Both designs will
probably make some use of RAM to control RCS hot-spots,
as indicated by the testing of scale models in national
measurement facilities.
This kind of approach will not yield the kind of
RCS reductions demonstrated by true Stealth aircraft,
but a rule-of-thumb estimate is that EFA or Rafale
might have one-fifth of the frontal RCS of earlier
aircraft. It can be argued that "semi-Stealt;.
requires fewer compromises in the design, and results
in a less costly aircraft for the same mission
performance. It can provide significant tactical
advantages in some areas; for instance, it can reduce
the lock-on range of a semi-active guided missile and
thereby alter the "first look, first shot" equation in
a favourable direction, possibly at less cost than by
upgrading the performance of the radar or missile.
Because RCS reductions affect "burn-through"
range (the range below which jamming is ineffective)
more readily than they reduce detection range, "semi-
Stealth" has some potential to improve the performance
of electronic warfare systems. However, taking
advantage of this phenomenon requires extremely
responsive EW power management.
COUNTERMEASURES
The B-2's predecessor, the B-52, is only now being
withdrawn from its design mission of strategic
penetration strike, 38 years after it made its first
flight. The B-2 is expected to retain its ability to
penetrate for at least 20 years after service entry. It
has been argued that an effective countermeasure to
Stealth will undoubtedly emerge in that time, and that
the concept is therefore invalid.
Simplistic discussions of "anti-Stealth" systems
rest on a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of
Stealth. If Stealth was a single technology, a "magic
ring", it might be negated by a single counter-
innovation; but it is not. The only way to counter
Stealth will be to gradually build the effectiveness of
defensive systems against low-RCS, cool targets to the
level which they now enjoy against targets which are
hotter and many times more reflective.
A number of techniques to improve radar
performance against low-RCS targets have been
discussed, and many of them work; the question is
whether they work well enough, or whether the
performance improvements that they offer can be
combined in a workable system.
Long-wavelength radars present problems for the
Stealth designer. All known types of RAM have a
characteristic performance profile, with a peak of
absorption at a certain wavelength and decreasing
performance away from it. While acceptable performance
can be achieved across most of the normal microwave
bands, UHF and VHF signals are harder to deal with. A
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Stealth aircraft which may be practically invisible in
X-band may have two orders greater RCS in VHF.
Long-wavelength radars present problems for the
radar designer, too. VHF radars of acceptable
resolution require such large antennas that they are
confined to non-mobile ground installations, and can be
readily bypassed behind terrain cover, or destroyed.
Moreover, effective early-warning radars are only
half an answer to the problem. If fighter fire-control
and missile tracking radars are still negated by
Stealth, early warning in itself is of little value.
Bistatic radar has also been advanced as an anti-
Stealth measure. Potentially, bistatic radar - in which
the transmitter and receiver are located separately -
can negate some shaping techniques. Faceting, which
directs main-lobe reflections away from the
transmitter, may aim such a reflection directly at the
receiver of a bistatic system. Most*absorbent materials
also display an absorption profile which peaks at
normal incidence - when the incoming signal axis is at
right angles to the surface - and their effectiveness
will also be reduced.
The basic principle of bistatic radar can be
refined. The probability of detecting a Stealth
aircraft bistatically can be increased by using
multiple receivers. Different waveforms, signal
processing techniques and receiver antenna designs can
be used to extract more information from the bistatic
return. Accurate positioning and synchronization,
provided by satellite navigation systems, makes mobile
bistatic installations feasible.
Nonetheless, bistatic radar has to overcome one
basic problem: that the radar effectively illuminates
only the volume of space where the transmitted beam and
the angular field covered by the receiver intersect.
Searching a given volume with a bistatic radar is a
slower process than scanning the same area with a
monostatic system.
The use of high-resolution Doppler radar for wake
detection has also been studied. The problem, in this
case, is that the disturbances created by aircraft are
small in comparison to natural atmospheric turbulence,
and the processing power required to extract aircraft
wakes from the total return would be enormous.
So-called "impulse radar", also called "carrier-
free" radar, has received some public attention.
Impulse radar transmits a wide-band "square" pulse of
energy, without a carrier frequency, and thus negates
the resonance mechanisms on which most types of RAM
rely. So far, however, this type of radar is in the
very early development stages, and an operational
system is some years away at best.
An alternative is what might be called the "all of
the above" approach, in which a number of promising
technologies are combined in an effectively netted or
federated system. The challenge in this case is one of
cost and effectiveness; might it not be more
worthwhile to invest the same resources to camouflage
targets?
CONCLUSION

It is unlikely that any future military aircraft,

designed to go in harm's way, will be designed without
Stealth in mind. What the progress of the ATF and A--12
programs will indicate is whether "full-blown" Stealth

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can be incorporated in front-line tactical aircraft, to
be operated and deployed by non-elite units, at an
affordable cost and without sacrificing other desirable
qualities. However, the indications are that the dollar
and weight cost of tactically useful signature
reductions is very reasonable, compared with the
improvement in mission performance and survivability:
provided only that Stealth is considered from the first
stroke of the designer's digitiser.

REFERENCES

Reimar Horten and Peter F. Selinger, Nurflugel,

(Graz, Austria, H. Weishaupt Verlag, 1985).

William H. Emerson, "Electromagnetic Wave

Absorbers", (IEEE Transactions on Antennas and
Propagation, July 1973.)

Jay Miller, Lockheed U-2, (Arlington TX, Aerofax

1983)

Clarence L. Johnson, Development of the SR-71,

(Lockheed-California, 1982) and interviews.
Allen E. Fuhs, Radar Cross-Section Lectures, (New
York, American Institute of Aeronautics and
Astronautics, 1985)

Aircraft Manufacture - The Next Generation and B-2

Three-Dimensional Database (videos, Los Angeles,
Northrop Corporation, 1988)

Bill Sweetman, Stealth Bomber,(Motorbooks

International, Osceola, Wisconsin, April 1989)

James C. Goodall and Bill Sweetman, Lockheed F-

117A, (Motorbooks International, Osceola, Wisconsin,
July 1990)